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Executive Orders

The U.S. military and representatives of a tribe, or sub unit of a tribe, signed documents which were understood at the time to be treaties, rather than armistices, ceasefires and truces.

Treaty-making between various Native American governments and the United States officially concluded on March 3, 1871 with the passing of the United States Code Title 25, Chapter 3, Subchapter 1, Section 71 (25 U.S.C. § 71). Pre-existing treaties were grandfathered, and further agreements were made under domestic law.

How Executive Orders Work

Executive orders are orders issued by United States Presidents and directed towards officers and agencies of the Federal government of the United States.

Executive orders have the full force of law, based on the authority derived from statute or the Constitution itself.

The ability to make such orders is also based on express or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation).

Like both legislative statutes and regulations promulgated by government agencies, executive orders are subject to judicial review and may be overturned if the orders lack support by statute or the Constitution.

Major policy initiatives require approval by the legislative branch, but executive orders have significant influence over the internal affairs of government, deciding how and to what degree legislation will be enforced, dealing with emergencies, waging wars, and in general fine-tuning policy choices in the implementation of broad statutes.

The United States Constitution does not have a provision that explicitly permits the use of executive orders. The term executive power in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution is not entirely clear.

The term is mentioned as direction to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" and is part of Article II, Section 3, Clause 5. The consequence of failing to comply possibly being removal from office.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that all executive orders from the President of the United States must be supported by the Constitution, whether from a clause granting specific power, or by Congress delegating such to the executive branch.

Specifically, such orders must be rooted in Article II of the US Constitution or enacted by the congress in statutes.

Attempts to block such orders have been successful at times when such orders exceeded the authority of the president or could be better handled through legislation.

The Office of the Federal Register is responsible for assigning the executive order a sequential number after receipt of the signed original from the White House and printing the text of the executive order in the daily Federal Register and Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Administrative Orders

Other types of orders issued by "the Executive" are generally classified simply as administrative orders rather than executive orders. These are typically the following:

Presidential Directives

Presidential directives are considered a form of executive order issued by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of a major agency or department found within the executive branch of government.

Executive Orders

Executive orders are simply presidential directives issued to agents of the executive department by its boss.

Until the early 1900s, executive orders went mostly unannounced and undocumented, seen only by the agencies to which they were directed.

This changed when the Department of State instituted a numbering scheme in 1907, starting retroactively with United States Executive Order 1 issued on October 20, 1862, by President Abraham Lincoln.

The documents that later came to be known as "executive orders" apparently gained their name from this order issued by Lincoln, which was captioned "Executive Order Establishing a Provisional Court in Louisiana."

Congress has the power to overturn an executive order by passing legislation that invalidates it. Congress can also refuse to provide funding necessary to carry out certain policy measures contained with the order or to legitimize policy mechanisms.

In the case of the former, the president retains the power to veto such a decision; however, the Congress may override a veto with a two-thirds majority to end an executive order.